Sharp
by IneffableBlue
Summary: Sakura has been teased, gotten angry for that, then gotten teased for getting angry. Everything she does isn't enough. But she's observant and slowly she starts to find out that she fits in better in the ninja world than she ever imagined. The best ninja are always thought to be something else and Sakura is a master at being mistaken for harmless.
1. Rising,

As soon as Ami says "Hey forehead girl!" Sakura feels rage start to rise. The familiar nickname tears at her heart. _Nobody could like you, forehead girl. Too ugly for friends._ She clenched her fists and tries to make the rage and self-hatred go away. Her efforts just add to it and it swirls and drags at her clothes and clogs her lungs. _Good girls don't fight_ , she reminds herself, desperately. She presses her back firm against the tree behind her and tries to channel all of her feelings into its bark.

"Just gonna sit there, forehead? " Ami taunts, grinning, her teeth sharp and very present and Sakura finds herself wondering whether it would hurt if Ami bit her. _Animals bite. Humans don't_ , Sakura reassures herself. Ami takes a step closer, her grin still just as wide, a touch of victory in her eyes. Sakura crosses her arms and hunches down, but tucks her fingers into fists. She glares at the grass in front of her and tries to ignore Ami's taunts. _Don't do it_ , Sakura tells herself but her fists ball tighter and she can't sit still as Ami spews insults through her smug grin. She finds herself standing and feels her cheeks pull tight as she shoots Ami a grin of her own.

"You're pretty ugly yourself, grape-head," Sakura growls, but it comes out tiny and high-pitched. Not for the first time, Sakura curses the fact that she's 7 and Ami's 8 and miles taller and bigger, but Sakura doesn't back down. Her fists are at her sides and she doesn't think she can pull them tighter.

"Aww, forehead's mad! Hey guys! Come look at this! She thinks she's something," Ami says in a sickly sweet voice, looking over her shoulder for her lackeys. They stomp up behind Ami and scoff at Sakura and her tiny, tight fists.

"You think you can beat us up, forehead? We're going to be _ninja_ and you're just a little civilian. Pathetic." They scoff and for a moment all Sakura knows is a comforting blankness in her head and the rush of her forward movement, but suddenly she's been tripped and her forward momentum turns to smash her into the dirt. All three girls standing above her laugh.

"Seriously? She tried to take on ninja? What kind of idiot is this girl…" someone murmurs above Sakura. Sakura feels dirt scrape her face and feels aches where her skin will bruise. Tears start forcing their way past her attempts to keep them back and she turns her face further into the dirt so that Ami and her friends won't see her cry.

"Is she crying? From that? God, that's so lame. No fun at all," someone far off to her right comments before breaking into giggles.

"Sakura! Get up! What are you doing in the dirt?" A familiar voice snaps. "That's a brand new dress, you know. If you got stains in that you're paying for a new one and I won't buy you any more nice clothes until you learn to take care of what you have." Sakura's mother stomps over and drags her daughter up by the arm and ignores the muddy tear tracks down Sakura's face. The girls standing off to the side whisper excitedly and giggle. Sakura lets her head hang and hides behind her hair, staring at the dirt that mats it. Her mother's fingers dig like claws into her upper arm and she straightens instinctively as her mother prods her for an answer.

"Yes, mother."

"Were you getting into fights again? Let this be another lesson, ladies don't get into fights. All you get out of it is ripped clothes and a ruined reputation."

"Yes, mother."

Sakura's mother shoots Ami and the rest of the girls in the schoolyard a narrow look, "If any of you ninja children had proper manners, the world would be a much better place." With that, she drags Sakura off home. Her hand doesn't leave its vice grip on Sakura's arm until they pass the threshold of their house.

* * *

It's always been a point of contention within the Haruno family that the closest school to their house is right next to the Ninja Academy. Sakura has always loved it and loved watching the ninja kids through the slats of the fence that separates the yards of the two schools. She loves the shared area in front of the schools a lot less. Her bright pink hair paints a target on her forehead that screams "tease me!" to all the general population, and ninja children aren't exactly encouraged to grow up nice. Violence is a part of ninja life and it fascinates and repulses Sakura all at once. Her parents are very firmly against ninja, and hate their "lawless, violent ways" and constantly remind her "don't trust them, baby girl". Her mother punishes Sakura for fighting and takes away privileges and assigns chores, citing that ladies shouldn't fight. Her father mutters darkly at her bruises and skinned knees before turning back to frowning at his newspaper.

Sometimes, Sakura wonders how they would feel if every day they were pushed down and sneered at in the schoolyard. Would they stay so pacifist or would their fists curl tight and their throats vibrate with the force of keeping their snarls down? Sakura is backed into a corner and there is only one way out.

"Please let me enter the Ninja Academy!" she throws herself down at her mother's feet one day as her mother comes back exhausted from a hospital shift. She presses her forehead against the floor and waits. The rustling of her mother's scrubs stops as she freezes. The sound of her father turning newspaper pages in the kitchen stops and silence reigns.

Sakura dares to turn her head and look up at her mother through her hair. Slowly, with narrow eyes and wrinkles creasing her forehead, her mother finishes slipping off her shoes. She doesn't look at Sakura as she heads to the kitchen table and sits with unnaturally controlled and smooth movements. Sakura scrambles to her feet and nearly tips over the chair as she tries to pull it out. Her father is folding his newspaper with precise movements, his gaze locked on his hands where they smooth wrinkles from the folds.

"What brought this about, Sakura?" her mother asks, slowly.

"I want to be a ninja," Sakura repeats. Her parents shift uncomfortably.

"Now Sakura," her father begins. "Ninja risk their lives daily for their job. They're required to fight and lay their life down if need be. They're just tools for the village, and stupid tools at that sometimes." He scowls. He works in law and has handled so many different complaints from civilians about ninja fights and property damage he can barely stand to look at a ninja.

"Sakura." Her mother looks sad and lost. "Sakura. You- I- ladies don't fight." Lost for words, her mother falls back on the familiar phrase, so overused it's almost lost all meaning to Sakura. No meaning doesn't mean no reaction and Sakura looks down in shame, somehow expecting the jeers of the girls from the Ninja Academy to reach her ears even here.

"Those- those girls," Sakura starts. "They're ninja." She glances up with careful eyes. "They kick me around and make fun of me and- and I want to be able to… I want to be able to make them stop." At her parents' wide eyes she hastily shakes her head. "I don't want to hurt them! I just want to let them know that I can do as well as they can in Ninja Academy. I'm just as good as them! I want to be able to protect myself."

"Sakura, honey, you shouldn't start something as life changing as Ninja Academy just because of some bullies…" her mother hesitates. She stands up and wraps her arms around Sakura from behind, kissing Sakura's fluffy pink hair. "You've been growing into such a lovely young lady. You shouldn't spoil that with this ninja nonsense. This is how you get yourself killed!" She rocks Sakura from side to side, hiding her face in Sakura's hair.

"Mother, I want to protect Konoha," Sakura says, hoping she doesn't sound as desperate as she feels. She reaches up to grasp her mother's arms and hold her there. _Really, I just want to prove myself and protecting Konoha is a great perk_. "I want to do something big, mom. I don't want to do a desk job or work at the hospital as soon as I get out of school. I want exciting work and I don't want to be stuck in mountains of hurt people like you have to deal with at the hospital."

Her mother sighs and she stops rocking Sakura. "Are you sure, honey? This is a really big decision. I won't stop you, if this is what you really want." She looks to her husband, who sits slouched, with his sharp eyes betraying the thought going on behind them.

He meets Sakura's eyes and she wants to wilt. He was never the most supportive father, but he's never looked so sharp before, and it hurts to meet his eyes.

"I don't like this, but…" he hesitates. "It's your life, your decision." His eyes are still drilling into hers and she nods firmly. _I won't let myself be kicked around_. "Don't make a mistake, Sakura. Ninja life is dangerous. You can be killed. Your friends can be killed. None of us want to lose you."

Sakura nods. "I know! I'll be good! I'll do good and be the best ninja and it'll be awesome!" She smiles big and doesn't notice her parents' sad eyes. Her mother moves to sit and rest her head on her husband's shoulder as Sakura stands and skips up the stairs to her room. The kitchen is silent.

* * *

Sakura starts at the Ninja Academy in the fall and she adores it. She flounces through the doors on the first day wearing a brand new red dress and a determined smile. There's a feeling in the back of her mind that nobody takes her seriously, but she still loves the books and lessons and all the knowledge she finds. _Chakra! That's what that energy is called!_ It's all lovely until they have their first taijutsu practical and her theoretical experience is useless. She's down with her face pressed in the dirt again and she hears someone snicker. Rage rises and she… deflates. She can't be angry. Ladies don't fight, she remembers. But her red dress is stained brown and her hair is in snarled knots and this is basically a controlled fight. Her mother has let her go to ninja school, to learn how to fight, so why keep that old promise? She's let up and she and her opponent make the Seal of Reconciliation. Sakura returns to the line and waits her turn to fight again. She smiles slightly and adrenaline floods her arms and fingers, making them shake as her turn grows closer.

"Are you really that eager to get beat down?" someone sneers and Sakura shoots her audience a slightly malicious grin. Energy is rising in her and her blood sings and whispers in her ear, telling her that someone is going to go _down_ and it's not going to be her. Her fists clench tight. The teacher eyes her with some amount of concern but calls for her to enter the ring.

Her opponent is a skinny girl with brown hair tied back in short pigtails. They make the Seal of Confrontation and the girl falls into a stance Sakura has never seen before, but Sakura remains unconcerned. Her heart is pumping fast and her stomach feels coiled and she's so _ready_. She spends the next five minutes getting beat down again. She hits hard and fast but her anger and adrenaline makes her uncoordinated and she forgets her previously textbook perfect stances to the haze.

"What kind of form is that? Little civilian couldn't take being beat once and forgot proper form?" Sakura can see the girl speaking from where she lays spent, her face in the dirt. She doesn't move and doesn't react. The adrenaline has receded and she feels like someone scraped all the emotions out of her, reaching the bottom of the bowl and leaving marks. The Seal of Reconciliation seems to be the most humiliating gesture possible.

After that she keeps her head low. _Everywhere I go I'm the weakest_ , she thinks bitterly. She'd thought that would be over at the Ninja Academy, but they still pick on her. Their horrible nicknames for her have more to do with her current position as the lowest of the class in practicals but highest in theoretical work. At least they don't seem to think her forehead is any more ugly than the rest of her though. She hasn't seen Ami and her lackeys since the end of her civilian school career, and she thanks whatever deities are listening for that, but she still seeks out the corners and shadows of the schoolyard when she waits to be dismissed. The schoolyard is not someplace she trusts and wants to stay.

Today, school let's out and she picks a direction and runs. She moves so fast that it only takes half a mile for her lungs to feel useless and her legs to lose all feeling, but she tells herself _it's all in my mind. I have enough air. My legs aren't tired._ The books in her backpack bump against the ridge of her spine and she ignores the familiar feeling of a bruise forming. She runs past buildings she can't remember and down streets she'd swear she's never seen before, all the while fighting to keep her thoughts off of the pathetic burn in her lungs and legs and the lightness in her head. Sweat begins to gather on her back and forehead and it condenses into rolling droplets as she approaches the market square. Sakura just has time to recognize that she's approaching from the direction opposite the Academy before she's dropping to her knees as they give out and her lungs work frantically.

Sweat drips from the ends of her hair as she stares down at the sidewalk. _Only one mile_. Any of the other Academy kids could have done better! Around her, the market bustles and people brush against her as they move in and out of the square. Nobody spares her a second glance. She's anonymous and it hurts. Everywhere she goes, she's boring enough that nobody cares. _Ninja are so...flashy! They throw around all those exhausting techniques and beat up their opponents and I'm so...not that._ Despite her eye-catching hair, Sakura knows she's nothing special to look at or know. Her eyes don't seem to work properly and her head spins but she forces her muscles to work and push her to her feet.

There's determination written in the creases of her eyes and the downward scrunch of her eyebrows as she moves forward. Her legs start working properly as she keeps walking and she trudges toward her house. She needs to improve.


	2. your feet beneath you

Sakura stared herself down in her bedroom mirror.

"I need to improve," she told herself. Her reflection glared back with sweaty hair and dirty clothes.

"First, I need to shower," she amended.

She almost collapsed when she lifted her leg to step over the edge of the shower, her tired muscles giving out, but she caught herself and managed to survive the water-slicked shower floor to emerge clean again. She pulled on her comfiest clothes and fell backward onto her bed.

"Okay, I have to plan," she said aloud. "I suck." She frowned. She sucked in many ways, in fact. In class they were mostly learning about ninja laws and political structure, nothing about health and fitness. They ran around the schoolyard and did pushups, situps, and pullups, but the allotted times weren't very long and they were expected to know and push their own limits, without encouragement from the teachers. Sakura hated the fact that she was weak, so she never pushed herself. As soon as she reached her pathetic limits she was reminded of how horrible and useless she was. If she didn't put in effort, she could at least pretend that was the reason everybody else had passed her by.

She sighed. "Looks like it's sweaty, gross endurance training time." She wrinkled her nose and pulled her legs up to her chest.

Running would help, even if she didn't know any other exercises to add to that. It would be nice if there were routes she knew of that would keep her from running into any of her classmates. It would be mortifying for any one of them to find her when she was weak and filthy from exercise.

She rolled over and muffled her voice with her comforter. "Just book learning for now. I can do that. Maybe I can find something to make running—or any exercise _—_ more interesting. I can actually exercise... later..." She scrunched her nose and sighed again. "I have no idea where to find a library."

She almost did what she'd always done and buried herself in her stuffed animals and blankets, where the world couldn't reach her, but she knew she couldn't. She couldn't fail here. She had decided to become a ninja and to grow strong, to not be seen as weak. How could she expect to gain respect from her mother and her classmates if there was nothing about her to respect? Step one, easy, is to find out where she can start. She left her bed and her house, looking for Iruka-sensei.

The streets were almost empty but Sakura knew the offices at the Academy almost never were. Even when school was not in session the instructors and other staff were buried in administrative work. She easily found Iruka in his office, adjacent to his classroom, and stood planted, forcing her mind into confidence, in the middle of his doorway until he looked up.

"Sakura? It's been a while! Come in." Iruka smiled, surprised, when he saw her, but his voice was just as warm and kind as it always was and Sakura was immediately at ease. She sat on the edge of the chair closest to the door and returned a tiny smile.

"Could you tell me about all the libraries in Konoha? Maybe just mark them on a map and tell me what each one focuses on, please? I have a kind of… project that I want to work on and I have no idea where to start," she asked. Her fingers picked at a loose thread on the seam of her dress, and she consciously stilled them.

Iruka smiled again and dug through a drawer for one of the maps they had to mark with important Konoha ninja administration buildings the first week of school every year. "Give me a second," he muttered as he made quick marks with a pen and turned the paper over to scrawl down short summaries of the libraries. Sakura stood up and took it from him when he offered it to her, glancing at the numbers clustered near the Hokage Tower and the Academy.

"Thanks, sensei!"

"No problem. Is that all?"

Sakura froze. Maybe he thought her silly for wasting his time for such an insignificant request? She eyed the clock on his wall—it was late and he would want to be getting home soon."That's all, sensei," she managed to whisper without meeting his eyes.

"Glad I was able to help," Iruka sighed. "Sorry to kick you out, but I'm already behind on grading." He smiled, even kinder and softer than before, and Sakura felt her anxiety retreat in the face of his gentle, honest kindness. She carefully relaxed, bid him goodbye and thanked him again, and left. Iruka was already buried in another stack of papers, left hand worrying the scar bridging his nose, when she closed the door behind her.

She leant against the wall beside the door and allowed her heartbeat to slow to its normal pattern while she skimmed Iruka's list to pick out the library he had marked as containing materials for Academy students and genin. It was located right next to the Academy and Sakura wanted to slap herself and set her brain right. She settled for groaning quietly and rolling her eyes. She should have seen that before, and even if she hadn't, that should have been an obvious location.

"Note to self: observation is important," she muttered and pushed off from the wall. The walk to the library took a grand total of thirty seconds and Sakura felt much, much stupider. There was even a big sign out front: "Konoha Ninja Library #3: Academy and Genin".

The library was quiet and the woman wearing a chuunin vest at the checkout desk didn't even glance up as Sakura entered, though she moved to make a mark on an official looking scroll. The main room was small and square, with smaller study rooms branching off of it, each with desks and chairs. Each isle was clearly labelled by category, and the one labelled "Taijutsu and Physical Training" seemed most promising. When Sakura stepped into it, the tall shelves blocked out the rest of the library and sound retreated.

She ran her eyes over the haphazard stacks of books and scrolls piled on the shelves. They didn't seem to be further organized within the "Taijutsu and Physical Training" designation. As she tiptoed down the aisle with soft, quiet feet, she let her her fingers trail across the spines of books. Most of them seemed useless to her, and many of them were old enough that they were probably obsolete.

The isle released her with a pile of scrolls and books in her arms. In a side room, Sakura dumped her haul on a table and sorted and skimmed the texts, settling on two that give concrete, doable that she discarded mentioned using chakra control exercises in conjunction with physical training to maximize time usage, but the book scorned the method as too distracting for proper physical training. Sakura was interested, despite the book's dismissal—it seemed best to have something complicated to distract her mind from the horrible feeling of weakness she got when she worked out.

She slipped back into the aisles to hunt for scrolls on chakra exercises.

* * *

It was dark outside when Sakura emerged from the library. By that point, the chuunin librarian had been eyeing her impatiently, wanting to clean and lock up. Sakura had ignored the librarian and sorted through her scrolls on chakra exercises for another half hour. Most of them had ended up detailing the same principles and exercises again and again, so Sakura only had three clasped in her arms. Standing in front of the library, she stretched out a leg and winced. Her muscles were starting to feel sore and she felt a flash of regret for her impulsive run before it was replaced by tentative pride. The ache reminded her that she had _tried_ and that felt better than anything.

The streets were unfamiliar in the dark and Sakura realized she had missed her curfew. Her parents must be frantic. The world dimmed in front of her and her breaths came short. The ache in her muscles grew and suddenly began to hurt. Her parents would be mad to find that she was out so late. She dug through her mental list of excuses and came up with nothing. There was nothing. They would be mad. They would be so mad. Sakura slunk into a nearby alleyway and slumped against the wall. She pulled in a short, shaky breath and felt her heartbeat speed further. It felt like her heart was trying to break her ribs and escape her frail body. She pulled in another breath, and another, and another and slowly her heartbeat calmed as she focused on breathing over thinking. She ran through her mental list of excuses again and again found nothing. She would have to admit fault. A plan, even one that left her facing punishment, was a reassurance and her heart finally began to calm.

Sakura finally sucked in a deep breath and felt her sore lungs stretch until they couldn't. She counted the scrolls in her arms. Three. She pressed her tongue to the backs of her teeth. She took a smaller breath and identified what she could smell. Garbage, smoke, parchment. She listened to the sounds of Konoha at night. A cricket chirping, the footsteps of civilians on the road, a tiny flutter of fabric as she saw a ninja pass between rooftops.

"I'm going to be in trouble," Sakura told herself, and pretended that she was okay with that. "I'm going to be grounded." She paused and breathed again. She'd be grounded. So what? "I can work on chakra control exercises inside. This will work. I will be a ninja. My parents will understand." She glanced down both ends of the alley, worried that someone had seen her minor freak-out. No eyes glanced back and Sakura edged onto the street. Nobody looked at her strangely, and, reassured, she set off toward home. The ache in her legs slowly began to subside.

She stretched a leg far in front of her as she walked, feeling her muscles move. "Sorry I'm home after curfew, I got distracted…" Sakura tried. "No. Sorry I'm home after curfew, I was at the library and…. No, that just sounds like I'm making excuses…" she tried again. "Sorry I'm home late, I was at the library and lost track of time. Better, but still not _good_." Here, she had to pause, take a deep breath and stamp her foot so hard it stung and made her stop thinking. Her house in its civilian neighborhood seemed miles away, and yet too close. As she walked, the few civilians out on the streets grew fewer and as they left the streets grew darker. When Sakura reached her house, it was a comforting island of warm light and familiarity and Sakura almost forgot that once she entered she'd be scolded.

She entered and in a flurry of movement her mother was there to scold her. Her mother enveloped her in a breathless hug, too tight, and her father hovered worriedly. The scrolls in her arms made a pitiful shield, yet she still tried to duck down and retreat behind them.

"Oh my god, Sakura, we were so worried! You've never missed your curfew before and if you were any later we were going to call the Hokage Tower and see if they could help us find you if you'd gotten into trouble or were lost or hurt or oh, Sakura, so many horrible things can happen to you when you're out so late on your own, didn't you think! You're only seven! Oh, Sakura, Sakura, Sakura, oh, Sakura," her mother sobbed and renewed her tight hold on Sakura. After a minute, Mebuki's tears slowed and anger replaced her fear. She pushed her daughter away to grip Sakura's arms tightly and hold her at arm's length. "You're grounded for the next week, and if you break curfew again after that, you're grounded for another month. There are horrible people out there, Sakura. Some ninja… god, Sakura, I don't want you around them." She pulled Sakura in for a hug again and rocked her back and forth. "Sakura, oh, Sakura, you worried us sick, Sakura, my lovely daughter."

Sakura couldn't breathe.

Sakura's father lightly placed his hand on his wife's arm. "Come on, love, give her some space. I'm sure she was just as scared as you, being out in the dark all alone." Mebuki slowly released Sakura, trailing her hands over Sakura's shoulders, and Sakura stood still, unsure of what to do. Her breath returned to her with an ache in her lungs.

"Here, Sakura, let's go up to your room," her father offered. He took his hand off of his wife's arm and took Sakura's hand. Together, they went up to Sakura's room, and Sakura set her scrolls on her bedside table before collapsing onto her bed, settling herself into the arms of Lavender, a giant stuffed turtle. Her father stood awkwardly in the doorway. He never entered Sakura's room if he didn't need to.

"You're a smart girl, Sakura. I know you understand how worried we were. Where were you?" he asked. His face had the careful blankness of a lawyer fighting to remain impartial.

Sakura hesitated, even though this was her father and she has always trusted him with everything before. She knew he hated ninja, though, and that pulled her words back down her throat.

"I was at the library," she mumbled, playing with Lavender's forefoot and staring at her hands as they moved. "I wanted to find some things in the Academy student section and I lost track of time." She didn't watch his reaction.

There was a pause that dragged through the thick air.

"Just remember to watch the clock next time, okay Sakura?" her father finally said. There was emotion in his voice, but Sakura couldn't identify it and she forced herself to leave it be. She didn't want to know.

"I will, dad," she said. She glanced up at him and gave him a weak, loose smile. "I'm sorry, it won't happen again." He smiled back, firm and reassuring.

"I know." He entered her room to ruffle her hair. "If you're going to be a ninja, at least be a good one. I'm proud of you for giving your all. That's the only way you'll survive." His smile had quickly vanished and as Sakura looked at him she saw the sadness pushing at the corners of his eyes and the tilt of his lips. His skin was wrinkled and there were streaks of grey in his hair; to Sakura he had never looked older.

"Ninja are cutthroat," he said. "To survive, you have to be just as cutthroat, just as wily. Do it right." _Or don't do it at all,_ he didn't finish.

Sakura nodded, but a splinter of fear embedded itself in her determination. She had entered the Academy to prove herself, but she was quickly coming to understand through the library and her father that the ninja world wasn't kind. Maybe she shouldn't have gone. She knew that she was shy and nervous. Those traits, incongruent with the bold power of a ninja, might kill her career.

 _I still need to try,_ Sakura thought. Her father was looking out her window. Sakura followed his gaze and saw the blur of a jounin instructor and their students upon the rooftops. Even after night had fallen, the ninja world continued to run.

"I'm going to get ready for bed," she said softly, and rose from Lavender's comforting embrace, passing her father as she left the room. When she returned from the bathroom, her father was gone and her bedsheets were smoothed, Lavender tucked under them and her other stuffed animals arranged in a neat semi-circle around her pillows. She walked out to say goodnight to her parents, distractedly trying to keep her footsteps as quiet as a real ninja. There was an uncomfortable air as they told her goodnight, their voices softer than usual. Sleep came quickly after that.


	3. again

The routine of the next morning didn't change, and Sakura struggled to keep up her new mindset. She woke with the sun from her window in her eyes. It was early and she had plenty of time to be at the Academy in an hour. Today her previous determination was almost gone and she felt like fading into the background, so she searched out her darkest clothes. There wasn't much to find, as her mother always insisted on the red dresses that she considered ladylike and pretty, but Sakura found a stretchy pair of leggings hidden in a drawer and a plain burgundy t-shirt in another. With them on, she still didn't look like a ninja, but now her hair was the only thing that would make her stand out in a crowd of civilian children.

Her parents didn't comment on her clothes, but Sakura could see their eyes linger on her for longer than normal. She ignored the shrinking feeling in her chest and the desire to pull one of the red dresses over her head to avoid it. Breakfast was quiet.

"I'll be back as soon as school is over, mother, father," Sakura said softly as she pulled on her boots. They were still new and the leather felt tight as she stood. She hefted her backpack, heavy with the weight of her school books and her library scrolls, onto her shoulders. The door creaked behind her and as she started walking she heard her parents start a soft conversation. _About me_ , she thought, pausing for a moment to try and make out their words. She couldn't hear anything distinct, and ahead of her the streets on the way to the Academy were clear. She walked away, shoving down her worries and wishing she had darker clothes.

Class progressed slowly. They were learning about chakra and its properties and applications. It had been made clear that they wouldn't be using chakra for jutsu until next year, but Iruka had hinted at chakra control exercises in the near future. The chakra lesson was short and they moved on to studying the different nations and their differences in ninja training and government. Being from a very civilian family, Sakura was fascinated with the odd and seemingly uncivilized forms of government and training. Kiri's graduation exam made her shudder and Suna's monarchist kageship made her frown. She found herself dismissed for lunch after hours that felt like minutes, very glad that she lived in Konoha.

Ami and her friends were in the class across the hall from Sakura's. They sat at the back of the classroom so they could gossip and hang back to catch Sakura when class let out. They had ambushed Sakura for almost a week straight when she'd tries to wait them out. Now, Sakura hid in the middle of the crush of students racing for the doors. Her hair made her an easy target, but that didn't matter once the taller upper-year students joined the crowd.

The crowd pushed Sakura out of the double-doors at the end of the main Academy hallway into the bright sunlight of the Academy backyard, where the students dispersed and left her to find a quiet spot alone. A tiny patch of grass tucked between a Hashirama tree and the Academy wall was the best spot Sakura had found yet. She was able to press her back against the wall and her feet against the tree, her backpack and the tree neatly blocking her from being seen from almost any part of the Academy yard.

Sunlight wound through the tree branches to graze her skin and she tilted her head back and calmed herself, turning her concentration inward. She rummaged in her backpack and pulled out the scroll she remembered she had on meditation and how to integrate chakra into it. Today in class, their teacher had skimmed over the theory of finding your chakra, but had left the details and practice for later. Thankfully, Sakura had a scroll detailing just that, and it was the perfect time for some experimentation. She skimmed the text to be sure she remembered and and gently laid the scroll down by her side, open for reference, before taking a deep breath and closing her eyes.

"Ah!" Sakura's eyes flashed open and her fingers twitched. She blinked and looked at her chest. That must be her chakra, swirling in her chest with an almost physical feeling. She felt it even when she wasn't focusing everything she had on finding it now; it ran under her skin to her fingers and back and down to her feet and up to her head and— wow. She stared at her hands. They didn't look different, but she could feel the chakra moving in a way that almost made her believe she could see it.

She focused on her fingers, moved her attention with the flow of her chakra, following it as it looped around her bones and up her arm. Once she reached her eighth gate area, near her heart, she lost the thread chakra she had been following and frowned. At her flash of frustration, her chakra flow responded and sped and curled in to her center. Sakura tried to calm it again but she had lost her focus and the lunch break was nearing its end. She pressed her back into the wall and tangled her hands in her shirt, using the pressure to smooth her chakra into a semblance of calm.

She released her breath and loosened her hands and laughed. "Why would they say this is hard," she mumbled with a smile. Her chakra was as natural and as present as the earth beneath her and she can't imagine that just two minutes ago she couldn't feel it there. She stared at her hands again and imagined the chakra she could feel as a visible glow.

Her stomach twinged sharply, interrupting her peace, so she dropped her hands and dug through her bag for what her mother had given her. The only lunch her mother had packed was a salad—appropriate for a figure-conscious lady—and Sakura finished the container in under a minute. Her stomach was sated, but only barely. Would the librarian have snacks she could eat? It wouldn't be long before she was hungry again.

There were shouts and laughter in the yard as her classmates shoved out a final burst of energy before the bell called them to stop their games. One of the teachers came outside and the shouts died out, a distinctive quiet rippling over the yard.

Iruka called her class to assemble around the practice posts, and Sakura's chakra immediately coiled tight and nervous in her chest, making her aware of how nervous she was and compounding that nervousness. Her hands were sweating as she stood up and dragged her backpack over to the pile of bags.

"All right, class, three laps around the whole field," Iruka shouted over the last subsiding murmurs. "If you cut corners I'll make sure that my kunai catch you!" Iruka smirked for effect "Off you go." Sakura dragged behind the last of the class as they took off, prompting an encouraging look from Iruka.

She breathed, making sure that her breath was steady. Steady lungs, steady heart, steady run. Her feet hit the ground in a comforting rhythm and she blocked out the rest of the yard so that she could focus on her feet, her breath, the beat of her steps. She pulled up an image of a book on running in her mind for distraction.

 _When running, the body requires more oxygen than when resting. Although it may feel like quick breaths will provide this to the body, breathing quickly speeds the heart and encourages the muscles to use even more oxygen. Breathe slowly and you will find you feel more in control of your heartbeat and your run._

Her feet hit the ground again and again, until her bones began to ache. She almost couldn't breathe as her lungs grew tired.

 _The hands should move from hip upwards; they should never reach behind the hip on the downswing. Move your left arm forward as your right leg steps forward, and your right arm with your left leg. The arms counterbalance the movement of the legs and provide stability. Remember to keep balance in your actions and step evenly._

She ran until her body automatically followed those around her and began to slow to a walk, and it took all her concentration to keep her wobbly legs underneath her.

 _Do not collapse at the end of a hard run; that allows your bodily systems to collapse with you in a hasty fashion that can cause stiffness and possibly injury. Walk until your breathing and heart rate return to normal and drink water, then you may sit and relax._

Iruka rushed out her time before turning to the next kid, his eyes glued on the stopwatch.

Sakura had beaten her previous best time by a solid half minute, even with her lungs aching and her legs numb. For the first time during physical block, Iruka turned back to her and his patent I'm-so-proud-of-you smile was directed straight at her.

Her wave of happiness carried her through the rest of the lesson and her defeats under her classmates' fists. She would be okay. She could train through this weakness and become a ninja.

So she started a routine. Every day after school, she ran for a mile, even if she had to walk that middle half-mile for the first week. She ignored her sore legs from previous days' runs and kept running day after day, pride for herself rising to fill her lungs like she was drowning in it.

Her usual run started in a narrow alley close to the Academy and wound through alleyways and flashed briefly across main streets, with their abundance of pedestrians that Sakura avoided when she could. It curled back around to end at the Academy library, where she retreated to a corner table to memorize everything she could about ninja. The chuunin at the desk barely glanced to check if she was there anymore before yelling for her to leave so the library could close.

Every day in the morning, when Sakura came down to breakfast in a deep green shirt and the same standard black pants that chuunin wore, all bought with her own money, her parents exchanged a quiet glance. She ate full meals, and her mother had given up on trying to get her to eat tiny portions "like a lady." Sakura came home from school with more scrolls squished in her bag every day and her skin always slightly tacky with sweat. Gross, but Sakura ignored it. She had things to _do_.

The one thing Sakura couldn't bring herself to change was her hair. It made her stand out, yes, and it had been used as a handhold in spars many times, yes, but it had taken her years to grow it out to where it was and it was beautiful. She didn't want to cut the only thing keeping her pretty anymore. She tied it in a secure ponytail high on her head and hoped that she wouldn't find a reason to chop it off in the future.

In the library and at home, Sakura had books and scrolls as her constant companions. She poured their knowledge into her brain and trapped it there, repeating it to herself when she was bored, stuck in class, to make sure she remembered. The scrolls about chakra were her favorites. Now that she had found her chakra, she eagerly learned the common exercises: leaf sticking and its cousins tree climbing and water walking. These were easy now that she consistently meditated enough to be aware of her chakra at all times. The hardest part of the exercises was getting the tiny tendrils of energy to maintain their solidity once she sent them out of her feet to latch onto the tree or coat the water.

Once she figured that out and learned that it just took strong force of will and even more awareness of her chakra, the next step was also easy—chakra strings. They were her favorite skill so far, and she loved to subtly flick her papers toward herself with a minor application of chakra, unnoticed in the middle of the classroom. She tried not to let others know what she had figured out how to do, knowing that they'd stalk her and ask for her to teach them. She saw it every time the Uchiha in her class did something new in a spar, and the thought of having that attention on her from both teachers and peers made her heartbeat race.

The one weakness her chakra strings had was that once they left her body, her chakra warped and she couldn't reabsorb it. Often, the strings would destabilize themselves and disappear. With concentration and force of will she could maintain control over them, but she didn't have fine enough control to keep the chakra comprising the strings at the same rhythm as the rest of her chakra. When she tried to draw her strings back into herself the chakra rippled across her skin and gave her minor burns instead of being reabsorbed. Her strings were still too thick and clumsy to recklessly throw around if she lost chakra after their use, so she worked to thin them and keep her chakra her own, which consumed her lunches during her second year of the Academy.

Her third year, she figured she ought to diversify and moved her determined perusal from all of the books in the Chakra section of the library to a more limited selection of all the books in the Genjutsu subsection of the Chakra section. Genjutsu, really, was just another extension of the chakra control techniques Sakura had already been doing, only requiring more chakra and knowledge of the human mind.

Sakura found large, flashy area of effect genjutsu unnecessarily complicated and probably impossible for her, with her small chakra reserves, so she preferred the genjutsu that quietly slipped inside a target's brain or sensory organs to disrupt their functioning or subtly alter emotions and perceptions. If done right, they were almost undetectable and could completely incapacitate the target. They did require detailed information about organ structure and extreme chakra control, but Sakura's strongest skill was memorization and she'd been working on her control for years.

She got down a couple genjutsu that slipped inside a target's ears with only a few hours of practice. There were no other genjutsu like them in the Academy section, but with a strong and complete knowledge of anatomy, Sakura could create her own genjutsu based off of what she knew. She added that to her to-do list. It was getting very long.

In the Academy, they started learning to use their chakra. Sakura had been keeping up with her meditation and chakra control practice as well as figuring out genjutsu, so everything they did came as easy as moving an arm. Her class didn't even do anything past the leaf sticking exercise, which was… disappointing. Sakura had maybe wanted to show off a little.

Their instructors warned them off elemental manipulation until their jounin teachers worked with them on it, and Sakura considered and discarded the idea of trying it out on her own. She really didn't want to ruin her chakra coils by messing up. Iruka had told them some horrifying stories about what happened to people who messed up badly: burnt from inside out, pulverized internal organs, irreversibly turning body parts to stone, permanently frying nerves, and other disgusting outcomes. Plus, she still had plenty to learn about what she could already use. Better to stay away from the deadly stuff.

Many of their Academy lessons were finally becoming practical, and Sakura found herself watching the teacher and the board more frequently than she used to. Her class had finished history and village knowledge and was moving on to other styles of taijutsu and physical conditioning. The basic Konoha Academy style that they'd been learning for three years was abandoned every other week in favor of confusing them with new styles, according to the whim of this week's taijutsu teacher. The teachers introduced weapons to the Academy style, then to every other style the instructors were trying to teach them.

Their teachers warned them: "Ninja are soldiers. They kill."

Iruka, the kind soul that he was, felt that this statement needed a qualification and further explanation. "ANBU take most of the assassination missions sent to the village, but general corps ninja still kill," he said. "It's an unavoidable part of our lifestyle. Most of you, right now, would not be capable of killing someone because you lack the emotional training. We will address that later this year and throughout your next three years, but know that killing someone with your own hands is very different from discussing killing someone in a classroom." The usually loud and energetic class was quiet that day, but by the next they seemed to have forgotten.

Sakura didn't forget; she wouldn't let herself. She had joined the Academy to get away from Ami and the other bullies and to prove herself, and it had worked. She hadn't seen Ami for two years and she felt stronger now. She was starting to win in spars, getting used to fighting and using her hands for friendly violence. Now she was told she that she will kill. She was nine and learning how to kill, and the violence no longer felt friendly and fun.

After that class, finally home after a long run, she laughed to herself. She was nine and learning how to kill. Her parents knew about ninja and hated ninja and didn't want her to be a ninja because she was nine and learning how to kill. Honestly, it had never occurred to her before now, but when she considered that position, it seemed obvious. She could use her chakra strings to strangle someone without rope. If she could make them sharp instead of dull, she could use them to slit someone's throat or cut off limbs. If she used genjutsu to make a target feel comfortable in her presence, she could have them dead before they thought to break the illusion. There were more options than just that, more ways to kill with only two basic techniques. If she added in everything she knew how to use, taijutsu, weaponry, and soon the three standard Academy ninjutsu, there were so many ways to kill. Her parents were seeing her want to become a killer, seeing her be proud of becoming a killer, and Sakura could understand why they wouldn't want that.

"Mother," Sakura asked. "Do you support me being a ninja?" Her mother looked up from the stove and dried her hands.

"Sweetie," she said. "Honey, I have never not supported you."

"Even if I might die?"

"I know…I know Konoha always needs more ninja and it's amazing that you want to dedicate your life to protecting our village, but that's it—the problem. If you become a ninja, your life is the village's and the village can take your life to do with as it sees fit. But I will support you."

"Even if I killed someone?"

Sakura's mother pressed her lips together and slowly lowered herself to sit at the table next to Sakura. "Even if you kill."

"Mom…. I'm sorry I'm going to be a ninja. I don't want to worry you."

Sakura's mother smiled, and it caught the tired lines around her eyes and mouth and pulled them deeper. "I know you don't, Sakura. Thank you, but don't be sorry. Everyone chooses a path, and living in a ninja village, one of the most obvious paths is to be a ninja. I don't blame you."

Sakura rubbed her palms together in circles, marvelling at the smooth slide of skin and trying to distract herself from her worry. She paused and stilled her hands. "Mother, I'm lonely." It was an admission to herself as well as her mother, and Sakura wanted only to curl into her blankets upstairs and hide.

Sakura's mother hummed and smiled before she reached to pull Sakura into a comforting hug.

"Sakura, baby," she whispered and kept humming. "It'll be alright. You've always been such a smart girl, you know that? So smart and so shy and alone. But ninja, Konoha ninja especially, work in teams and that's going to be you, baby. You've got to step outside your comfort zone sometimes, okay? Keep going and you might just find yourself some friends. Some people who will keep you safe."

Sakura gripped her mother's shirt tightly. "What if I don't want to talk to other ninja? The only people I know at the Academy are Ami and her friends and I don't want to talk to them."

"Talk to someone else, then. You're smart. Use that to meet people." Sakura's mother disentangled Sakura's hands from her shirt and stood up. With her hands on Sakura's shoulders, she said "I believe in you" and patted Sakura's cheek as she returned to the kitchen, still humming.

Without her mother's arms around her, Sakura felt cold and even more alone. Now that she had admitted it, it was easy to see that her past two years at the Academy had been spent using books and training to fill the time where she should have had friends. She had years to make up for her loneliness, so she let herself be childish and retreat to her room to wallow in self-recrimination. She wanted to make something change so that she didn't need to feel so lonely and small, but she had a weekend to work it out, and she wanted to rest.

* * *

With the weekend as an excuse, Sakura stayed in her room and moped, using her chakra strings to act out mini dramas with her stuffed animals. She was snuggled into Lavender's giant, comforting arms, awkwardly controlling both Dahlia and Rose, still unpracticed with using two chakra strings at once.

"You betrayed me!" she imagined Rose yelling.

"My love," Dahlia said. "I could never hurt you! Everything I do is for you!"

"But you did hurt me!" Rose cried. "You might not have meant to but you did! And now I'm alone…" Sakura guided Rose to wrap her stubby teddy bear arms around her stuffed stomach.

Dahlia threw herself flat on Sakura's sheets. Her polar bear snout was pressed into Sakura's sheets and her voice was muffled when she apologized.

"I'm sorry Rose. I am really sorry that I hurt you and it won't happen again."

Sakura frowned as she mostly failed to smush Rose's mouth into a smile with only her chakra.

"It's okay." Rose touched Dahlia's head. "I'm not ready to start our relationship again as it was, but I don't want to lose you." The stuffed bears touched paws and Rose pulled Dahlia up into a hug.

Sakura put both strings in one hand and put her chin on the other. The one string she'd switched shivered and leaked chakra as it destabilized. Sakura, tired and bored, gave up. Dahlia and Rose collapsed against each other as Sakura let her chakra strings disintegrate into blue light and her silent soap opera ended.

"That's a good use for your ninja tricks," Sakura's father said from behind Sakura, in the direction of the doorway. "If being a ninja doesn't work out you could work as a puppeteer."

Sakura didn't know if she was imagining the reluctance she heard when he mentioned her career as a ninja. "I guess," she said and forced out a tiny giggle, turning to face him. "Does mother want me in the kitchen?"

"Yes," her father said. Sakura nodded and walked out of her room and down the hall and stairs, knowing that he still stood at her open bedroom door, watching her with that odd expression.


	4. Finding your breath

Monday came quickly. Sakura had managed to make one step forward over the weekend—she acknowledged that she had a new fear: not being a good enough murderer and getting murdered because of it.

Monday was there, and her class was filled with whispers. Sakura didn't have friends to consult, so she sent a flicker of chakra to her ears like her books had taught her and she listened.

"The Uchiha," her classmates whispered.

"They're all dead. The clan head's oldest son did it—"

"Poor Sasuke, all alone with nothing in that empty—"

"—gone before the ANBU caught him. There are rumors that he was ANBU himself though, so—"

"—still say good riddance though. My mommy doesn't lie and she says that the Uchiha controlled the Kyuubi and they're the reason—"

"—Sasuke to come back! I can comfort him so he won't be so alone and maybe finally—"

"—leave Sasuke alive? Could he not kill his brother? He killed everyone else there's no reason for—"

Sakura inhaled very slowly and pressed her back firmly against her chair. She could feel fear press against her heart, almost as if something physical had curled up in her chest. This was a real life example to make sure she remembered: they were killers and they killed and died. This was the cycle her village lived and thrived on, uncaring, not sparing her classmates, not sparing her.

She updated her training schedule during Iruka's boring lecture on chakra control, which she managed to pay attention to for only a minute before Iruka managed to repeat the books she'd read when she was six at least ten times. She regretfully emptied her lunch times of training to allow socializing, though she dreaded speaking with her classmates all the more now that the sole topic of conversation was the death of the Uchiha.

Sakura implemented her new plan that lunch. "Hello—" she tried, carefully clasping her hands in front of her.

"—the Hokage will release the reports?" the girl chattered on to her friend.

"Do you…." Sakura asked, trailing off as the girl didn't react. She glanced around the group of girls—none of them even looked at her. She gave up and turned to find someone else, but the interaction repeated itself with other girls in her class and Sakura retreated. Maybe she'd been right to keep away from these people, after all.

After school, her afternoons filled with training displaced from lunch. She solidified the kata and techniques they learned at the Academy and devoured every book and scroll she had access to in the library. Her chakra control exercises became less confined to set time frames; she tucked one of her smaller stuffed animals, Peony, into her right pants pocket and kept a chakra string attached to the tiny tiger, acting out mental conversations with him even while she used other strings to arrange her papers or subtly play with one of her classmates' pens.

"Hello," Sakura said to Shino, who she sat next to at the back of the classroom. He nodded to her.

She considered this a nice progression in her social life, which up until this point had consisted of being ignored for days, and returned to memorizing a scroll on Kiri's native plants and animals.

"Hello," Sakura said to Ino at lunch. She wasn't really expecting to be acknowledged; Ino floated above the social life of the rest of the class, an idol for the rest of the girls, and Sakura was used to being brushed off. Ino however, turned to Sakura with a smile.

"Hi!" Ino gasped delightedly. "You're…" she tilted her head, "...Sakura, isn't it?" Sakura nodded, and that was all it took to break into Ino's broad circle of friends. Sakura had labeled Ino as "will hold a conversation even if I cannot," and that characterization held true as Ino maintained a steady stream of chatter throughout lunch, happy to continue talking without prompt while Sakura struggled to understand an unnecessarily grandiloquent book on the politics of Iwa's formation. Ino knew everyone, and within a couple lunches Sakura felt that she had met everyone in her class and beyond just by sticking near Ino. Maybe she could do all her socializing through Ino and not have to speak a word.

Sakura's third year passed and she maintained a solid average-advanced placement through that year and the rest of her years at the Academy. She skimmed her report cards just enough to read the comments for improval and then left them on her mother's desk at home. Honestly, Sakura didn't care. The Academy lagged behind her independent studies and half of the theoretical knowledge it tried to give them was useless, designed to prepare failed genin for civilian jobs. Sakura did not plan to be a failed genin.

The graduation test came fast and passed easily. Sakura walked out with her head spinning from one of Iruka's I'm so-proud-of-you smiles—the ones that still caused her chest to ache with pride like she was seven again. It took her the whole walk home to come down and really understand that she was _out_. She was out of school and almost officially a ninja, a legal adult. There were still papers to sign and a second layer of tests to pass, but she was almost _there_.

"I'm home," she called, loosening the wraps on her calves to slip her boots off.

"Welcome home, Sakura," her mother responded from the kitchen. She poked her head out and her face folded into a strong smile when she noticed the forehead protector hanging from Sakura's hands. "Sakura! You graduated! Congratulations! I'd hug you but my hands are covered in flour. That's a promise for later." She gave Sakura a proud look. "Talk over dinner. I've got to finish this right now."

"Thank you, mom. I'm going to be in my room." Sakura smiled back at her mother and ran her thumb over Peony's head in her pocket as she stepped up the stairs.

Her room was calm, her stuffed animals forming a nest on her bed with books and scrolls tucked between them and sheafs of paper stacked on her table. Sakura stood in front of her mirror and held the forehead protector up to her forehead.

 _Boring_ , she thought. _It'll probably fall into my eyes at some point if I leave it there._ She held it against her left bicep. _Feels restricting_. Against her right thigh, over the wraps holding her kunai pouch, the forehead protector looked and felt right. She tucked its backing cloth under some of the wraps and tied it. In the mirror, her stance was the same, she didn't feel more experienced or powerful. She looked the same. Annoyingly bright hair and eyes, boring face, boring body, boring clothes. Plus forehead protector.

There were much surer paths to survival than preening over a tiny change, and Sakura let out her breath as she easily abandoned the mirror for her new scroll on different types of knives, their common regional types, and the basics of their usage. She settled into Lavender's arms to read and fill those several hours of relaxing free time before she went back to school to get her team and take the final test.

* * *

After their long lunch break, the classroom was chaotic. Energetic Academy graduates spilled over the desks and filled the air with noise. Sakura waited patiently in the back of the classroom, without a book for once, simply watching her classmates. She watched Ino walk through the door, the rest of the Sasuke Fanclub following, and watched the commotion the entrance caused. She watched as the mob of fangirls accidentally shoved Naruto so that he fell face-first onto Sasuke's face. Sakura quickly scanned the room to make sure that none of the other girls were watching before she giggled a little to herself. Ino screeched for just long enough to seem distraught before joining Sakura in the back of the classroom.

"Sakura," Ino sniffed, delicately tipping up her chin. She only managed to hold onto her haughty air for a few seconds before she slumped down, hid her face behind her hands and giggled. "Oh my god. Did you see their faces? Naruto turned looked like he was going to throw up and Sasuke's face was so bright it looked like it was painted red, _oh my god_."

Sakura frowned. "If you keep throwing them at each other one day they're both going to explode in a bloody mess and Konoha will be down one Rookie of the Year and one…" she paused "ninja."

Ino stared at Naruto and Sasuke for a couple more seconds before she giggled again. "Aww, they're both blushing but they're still sitting next to each other! So cute."

Sakura sideeyed Ino warily. "No. You're not going to try to set them up. They try to destroy the Academy every time they _see_ each other. Setting them up would involve them being _closer_ and therefore causing _more_ destruction."

"You're probably right," Ino sighed. "It would be so cute though…." Sakura grimaced and felt a little like throwing up. Naruto and Sasuke were in no context cute. She had to admit that maybe… with both of them blushing and sullen she could see it. Still not cute though. Still the biggest assholes in the Academy.

The class didn't quiet or settle when Iruka entered and Iruka had to yell, inaudible under the din, for a solid five minutes before the class acknowledged him. He began a droning speech, pausing occasionally to yell at Naruto, and Sakura listened for a few seconds before deciding he was, once again, repeating information that she'd memorized years ago.

She leaned her face on her hand and twitched her fingers to thread chakra into shapes that only she could feel. She formed a flower flat on the surface of the desk, spinning it lazily. With a push, her chakra twisted from a simple daisy to the complicated folds of a rose. Sakura played with it for a few minutes, frowning as it refused to cooperate and look like a proper rose. When it was decent, she twitched her fingers to peel her chakra rose up off the desk and bit her lip as she knotted and molded her chakra to fill out the flower in three dimensions. With a tiny pulse of chakra, it began to glow faintly. Sakura fit a minor genjutsu over it to change the blue glow of her chakra to a pale pink. Ino glanced over.

"A pink rose," she said.

Sakura hummed and adjusted a few of the petals so they fanned out more. Ino reached out to poke it curiously and Sakura's control over her chakra failed, the rose bursting into pink light .

"Hey!"

"Sorry," Ino said sheepishly. "It looked really pretty though…"

From the front of the classroom, Iruka took on a tone that indicated he was imparting great wisdom and it was best they listen. "Remember what I've taught you. The way of a ninja is hard, but through hard work you can succeed and serve the village as best as possible. Now, until you reach chunin you'll be working in four-man teams with two other genin and your jounin instructor. I'll call out your teammates and your jounin instructor will come collect you." Iruka glanced around, trying to glare the unruly class, mainly Naruto and Kiba, into order as the excited chattering swelled. He gave up. "Team One…"

Sakura remembered the names and some characteristics of her classmates thanks to Ino, but she was still only really familiar with Ino and through her Shikamaru and Choji. She had never talked to anyone other than those three and Shino. Six teams were called before Sakura heard her name, and all of them were filled with the Academy students that even Ino had only ever briefly brought up.

"—Team Seven: Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and Uchiha Sasuke."

Sakura groaned, and slumped forward. Oh no. Oh _no_.

It would have been bad for only one of that pair to be on her team, but having them both was asking for double homicide. Double homicide by Sakura. She would murder them both. It was inevitable.

"I—" Ino said and turned to Sakura. "—am so sorry."

"You just finished riling them up too," Sakura mumbled, resting her forehead on the desk. She dared to glance at her new teammates from under her arms. Predictably, they were arguing. She let her arms cover her face again.

Ino was placed on a team with Shikamaru and Choji and was suitably bitchy about it.

"I know that I've known that we were going to be a team since _forever_ , but do we have to be a team? Do we really?" Ino lamented, dramatically throwing a hand across her rolling eyes.

"At least you and your teammates _can_ work together," Sakura muttered, still hiding her face in her arms. "Mine try to murder each other and I'm pretty sure Naruto doesn't even know who I _am_." From his seat by Sasuke, Naruto was looking around the classroom with a confused expression.

"Holy shit, I think you're right."

"I'm going to call in the jounin instructors now," Iruka said. He opened the classroom door and team by team the students were taken away.

"Um," Iruka said when he reached Team Seven, without even glancing out the door. "You guys will have to wait. Sorry." He looked more angry than apologetic.

"Ooooh. Someone's in trouble," Ino singsonged. Sakura let out a stressed breath and pressed her face harder into her arms.

Another instructor called for Team Ten.

Ino stood and looked down at Sakura.

"Well. Good luck," she said. It sounded more like a question than a reassurance.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Sakura replied, muffled by her arms. Soon, the classroom had emptied and the only sound was Naruto's babble from the front. Sasuke's brooding felt like a tangible thing weighing down the mood of the others in the room, though Naruto's happy voice held up the mood somewhat. Sakura was at least glad that she was not one of Sasuke's fangirls—forcing Sasuke to deal with a squealing, attention-grabbing girl would likely drive him away from displaying any semblance of teamwork and trust.

"I'm sorry and I hate to leave you alone, but I really need to get to the missions desk," Iruka said from the front of the room where he was shoving papers into his bag. "Your instructor might be a couple hours late." He muttered something that looked suspiciously like "goddamn asshole can't even be bothered to make a good goddamn first impression," but Sakura might just be projecting her thoughts onto her poor lip reading.

"Bye Iruka!" Naruto yelled, bouncing in his seat.

Iruka smiled fondly and took a few steps to pat Naruto on the head. "Bye, kiddo."

"Make sure my classroom is still here tomorrow," Iruka said, looking at Sasuke, then Sakura. Sakura lifted her head enough to smile and nod politely. Sasuke didn't look like he had noticed that Iruka existed.

As soon as Iruka left, Sakura pulled out a book and buried herself in it. She breathed out and relaxed as Naruto's noise faded into the background and she focused. If she hadn't had something else to distract her, she was sure it'd only take five minutes for her to snap and wrap several layers of duct tape over his mouth.

Their instructor took, in total, three hours to make it into the classroom, where he promptly fell victim to one of Naruto's milder pranks. Sakura regretfully raised her gaze from her book when Naruto broke the shallow silence he'd fallen into and fell out of his chair laughing. Their instructor paused in the doorway with a cloud of chalk dust settling around him and clinging to his hair, though it looks like his hair had been grey even before it had been chalked.

"Hmm, how shall I put this?" The man in the doorway asked. "Based on my first impression, I'd have to say…I hate you."

 _If he's trying to look intimidating, the chalk dust all over his face isn't helping,_ Sakura thought incredulously. Based on her first impression she'd have to say that he didn't look respectable or powerful.

"Meet me on the roof in five minutes." He disappeared in a puff of smoke and the room was frozen, silent, for a second until Naruto scoffed.

"He doesn't look strong!" Naruto yelled. "Is that really our instructor? Maybe that bastard there deserves someone weak like that, but I'm the future Hokage and I deserve a better instructor! Maybe the Hokage himself!" Naruto's yelling devolved into something incomprehensible, involving a lot of pointing at Sasuke, who still looked dead to the world, so Sakura took the opportunity to grab her bag and leave the room.

"You're late," her instructor said when she stepped off the stairs onto the roof.

"Sorry," Sakura whispered, looking at the place where his left eye, covered by his forehead protector, should be, instead of the eye that she could see. Even though he didn't look particularly judgmental, she still wanted to turn back into the stairwell to avoid his gaze. He was an instructor, and she didn't want to disappoint him, powerful or not. Taking the next best option, she wedged herself between a tree and a wall with her back to the wall. It reminded her of her lunch hideout.

Naruto and Sasuke broke the awkward silence on the rooftop with panting breaths and heavy footfalls.

"I win!"

Sasuke scoffed. "No. My foot went through the doorway before yours."

"Nuh-uh! _I_ won! You can go suck—"

"Not now, children," their instructor interjected, his visible eye closing in what could charitably be called a smile. "Now is the time for introductions! So sit." He flapped his hand at the steps across from him, just in front of Sakura's tree. Naruto glared at Sasuke and mouthed an insult, but Sasuke ignored him and took a seat on the steps, immediately lacing his fingers together and assuming his brooding pose. As Naruto finally sat down, with a lot of wiggling and tapping of feet, their instructor continued.

"Now, I'd like you all to tell us a little about yourselves." There was silence.

"Like what?" Naruto asked, his feet tapping out an odd syncopated rhythm.

"You know. The usual. Your favorite thing, what you hate the most, dreams, ambitions, hobbies. Things like that," their instructor responded, his eye tracking the flight of a sparrow as his words trailed off.

"Help us out here, sensei. You go first. Show us how it's done," Naruto said, switching from tapping his feet to tapping his fingers.

"Hm," Sasuke grunted. It might have been agreement?

"Oh…me?" Their instructor pointed to himself and raised his visible eyebrow. "My name is Hatake Kakashi. I don't feel like talking about my likes and dislikes. My dreams for the future are none of your business…. But anyway, I have lots of hobbies." There was a moment of silence as he stared blankly at the sky before focusing on his prospective students again. "Now, it's your turn. Starting with you on the right."

Naruto glanced around. "Oh! That's me!" he laughed. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto! What I like is instant ramen! What I like even better is when Iruka treats me to ramen at Ichiraku's ramen stand! What I hate is the three minute wait after I pour in the boiling water! My dream is to one day be a better ninja than the Hokage so that all the villagers will finally have to acknowledge my existence!"

Sakura stared openly at him for a second before remembering herself and looking at the ground again. So far she had picked up two personality traits from him: loud and likes ramen. She pitied him a little. Did he ever get bored with himself?

"My hobbies are…pranks and practical jokes, I guess," Naruto finished. He adjusted his forehead protector and smiled widely.

"Next," Kakashi said.

There was a moment of waiting silence before Sasuke spoke.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. There are plenty of things I hate, but I don't see that it matters, considering there is almost nothing I like. It seems pointless to talk about "dreams." That's just a word, but what I do have is determination. I plan to restore my clan, and there's someone I have sworn to kill." Sakura pressed her back against the wall behind her. It was one thing to know that in her future she would bring death; it was another thing to make bringing death one's plan for the future. She didn't know that she liked Sasuke, even under his brooding.

"And finally, you hiding back there." Kakashi flipped an idle hand in her direction.

Sakura could feel the blush rising hot in her cheeks and she breathed like Ino had taught her to. _Calm_ , she told herself.

"Uh. I'm Haruno Sakura. My favorite thing is...well, favorite person, is Ino. I hate, umm… I hate bullies. My dream is to become strong for what I love. My hobby is reading." Her face steadily heated until it felt like it could boil water. She'd grabbed for the first things she could think of and they sounded stupid.

"Okay," Kakashi said. "We all know each other now. Training begins tomorrow."

"Yes, sir!" Naruto shouted, with a grin so wide Sakura could count all of his molars. "What will our duties be? Our first real ninja mission! Wow!"

"Survival training."

"We did that in the Academy!"

"Well, this survival training will be you guys trying to survive fighting me. It will be the test that determines whether or not you become genin."

"What!" Naruto shouted. "We already took the stupid Academy test. We're genin!"

Sasuke scoffed in what might be agreement, his expression broodier than usual.

 _Didn't we learn about the secondary test in the Academy? Am I misremembering? Actually… that might have been in a book. Do they ever read?_. Sakura sighed. Kakashi eyed her.

"The test has a 66% fail rate. We meet at 6am in training ground 3. Don't eat breakfast before the test or you'll throw up," he said, before giving them a two-finger salute and disappearing. Sakura stared at the leaves that slowly swirled to the ground where he had been.

She tipped her head back to rest against the wall and ignored the boys squabbling about who was going to pass. Training ground 3. That one was tucked behind the left side of Hokage Mountain and because of the memorial stone it housed, it was more often used as a site for mourning than training. She had passed through it a couple times on her runs. The stream running through it was fast, a little turbulent, and good for practicing water walking on. Open field, three training posts, the memorial stone. It was surrounded by thin forest. It wasn't really ideal for traditional survival exercises, but it was good for sparring, fitting Kakashi's sadistic version of survival exercises well.

Naruto and Sasuke were gone, without telling her goodbye. She stood, brushed off her clothes, and did a quick check of the Academy yard, both visually and with her tiny, inaccurate chakra sensing range. She didn't find anyone, so she pulled herself over the railing and walked down the Academy wall with a practiced application of chakra. Now that she had a team and they were almost officially genin and ninja, she supposed she could stop being so shy about the skills she had picked up outside of the Academy, but habits were hard to break and she could imagine the ruckus Naruto would cause. Sasuke would be annoying about it too, in his quiet way. She had seen how he treated those that dared to catch up to him in class.

Today, when her run took her through training ground 3, she stopped, did a few cool-down stretches, and explored. It was as she remembered. She didn't find any traps or hidden dangers, though it would be easy for a jounin to thoroughly trap both the field and forest in an hour or less.

She sighed. From just looking at the training ground, she had no idea exactly what to expect. Just controlled sparring? An actual free-for-all fight? Something else?

The stream rolled under her feet when she stepped onto it and slipped into a stretch. Her body folded easily as she shifted through stretches into a string of Academy kata. With so few clues, it was easier to train than think. Her kata ended and she ran again, on top of the stream as it wrapped around the side of the village.


End file.
